ABC journalist takes on critical research project

Edmond Roy is studying the role of uranium in the India-Australia equation, at a prestigious US institute

BY DARSHAK MEHTA

Both Australia and India can look for a balanced perspective and hopefully a fresh start in the saga of uranium supplies to India - a notable, if silent, irritant in the India-Australia relationship.

This may come about as a consequence of the efforts of renowned ABC journalist Edmond Roy.

He is currently the associate producer of the ABC radio show PM. Previously, he anchored the television current affairs show Asia-Pacific Focus on the Australia Network channel. He has presented, produced, and reported for a number of other high-profile radio and television shows in Australia. His reporting has taken him to India and to front lines in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Kerala (India).

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars announced the appointment of Edmond Roy as a Wilson Center Australian Scholar. Roy is currently in Washington, spending three months in residence at the Wilson Center, beginning in March 2010, working on a research project examining the Australian government’s policy on uranium sales to India.

The Center for Scholars (a living national memorial to President Wilson) was established by Congress in 1968 in Washington, D.C. It is a prestigious nonpartisan institution, supported by public and private funds and engaged in the study of national and world affairs.

Roy will be trying to find answers to some highly confounding and contentious questions, such as why Australia is persisting with this policy of offending the world’s largest democracy and one of its biggest trading partners – India.

He hopes to speak to influential Australians who have a view on the issue such as former foreign minister Alexander Downer, leader of the Greens Bob Brown and Ziggy Switkowski, Chairman of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO).

Of course, a serious assignment of this kind would be incomplete without speaking to the Indian side to get an appreciation of their position as well. So, mandarins in India’s Ministry of External Affairs as well as the boffins of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade can well expect some searching questions – which, one fears, will all be played with a “dead” and defensive bat.

Roy thinks Australia might well be hiding

Center, Roy will scrutinise the ways in which successive Australian governments have used the arguments related to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, as well as Canberra’s strategic, military and ideological concerns, to prevent Australian uranium sales to India

“I will seek to understand India’s options, given its rapidly expanding energy needs, and query whether Australia can sustain this policy in the years ahead as well as afford the strategic implications,” Roy told Indian Link. “I will also look at possible changes to the policy in light of the Indo-US nuclear agreement, and the deal’s overall impact on Indo-Australian relations”.

Roy considers himself fortunate that he will be based in Washington as the influential think-tank would have close links with Washington insiders as well as in the current Obama administration and it would greatly aid his appreciation of the issues involved from the all-important American viewpoint.

“I am surprised that more Australians have not delved into the topic of uranium sales,” Edmond noted. “To the best of my knowledge apart from Rory Medcalf of the Lowy Institute and Dr Sandy Gordon of the ANU, there hasn’t been too much academic attention paid to this issue”.

Roy is excited by the challenge of his assignment and is aware of the impact it could have on the Australia-India relationship. The prospect of producing a scholarly treatise which will be referred to in future also gives him a buzz.

This writer anxiously awaits the formal book that the Woodrow Wilson Center publishes on Edmond Roy’s research - it promises to be the definitive tome on the topic.